


Worship

by ShrupInterrupts



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, M/M, Mentioned Ana Amari, Mentioned Angela "Mercy" Ziegler, Ritual AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-09-24 17:01:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17104586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShrupInterrupts/pseuds/ShrupInterrupts
Summary: Their god is a fickle one. Changing Its demands on a whim. A god of Nothingness and Death.





	Worship

**Author's Note:**

> The Ritual AU literally no one asked for.

The winter drove them to it.

A cold snap struck without warning, killed more crops than they could spare. Still, a community like their's could survive the unexpected. They had before.

Until the rot took hold. Claimed near everything not salted or cured. Left the families scrambling, desperate to find more food 

The winter drove them to it.

He had been young, wary but eager. So very foolish. Did they mean to send so many second sons, women believed beyond prospecting, those that simply had not befriended the right person? Did they know or only suspect what fate awaited them beyond the dark canopy of the gnarled forrest? Did they think this endeavor a mercy compared to starvation?

He would never know.

They must have suspected it. The songs they sang seemed just a little to forceful, almost cheeky and spiteful. Or maybe that was just his memories being colored by what came. The sharp wind at their backs drove them forward, into the shadows cast by the looming foliage.

The winter drove them to it.

\---

Jack woke to the chill settled deep in his joints. The silence of the compound wrapped around him with a violent intensity. Something was wrong.

His breath hitched as it usually did before being Noticed, but this was not right. It was not time for a sacrifice. It was not time. The vague shapes of his room resolved into dark smears, night but not true darkness. Not His.

He was on aching feet moving to the main house without even bothering to lace his boots.

The frost crackled under foot. Sharp and piercing the otherwise silent night. There are no bugs, no predators calling to the sky. There was only one thing that hunted in these woods at night.

He entered the main house to find it empty, torches flickering in their sconces. Angela was probably asleep. She would not mind if he looked for solace without waking her.

Climbing the steps he ascend into the darkness.

\---

The first night he had dreamed of nothing. Not unusual but strange in its voidness. Their party had found bear scratchings and were hoping to find it fat and ready for a winter's slumber. 

Through the twisting trees they followed the signs. Tracks and scat guiding them closer through the second day. 

They found it just before night. Hoisted among the trees, an abomination, they did not know it for a bear at first.

It's skin, glistening and black, sloughed off it in thick wet sheets, splattering on the earth at their feet. Wrong down it's twisted bones. He had vomited.

They made camp as far from the bear as they could before night fell.

\---

Jack pushes open the Sanctuary door, relaxing at the familiar squeal of hinges. Stepping inside the light catches a few of the Worshipers before they are wrapped in darkness once more.

He prefers not to look at them. Not to know what comes after his failing eyes and greying hair. Not to worry to what row he will be assigned.

Their god is....dramatic. He can find no other way to describe what it is to worship this ancient thing. To be behest to Its changing whims. To never know if this Sacrifice will appease or enrage It.

He has seen so many of both. 

\---

That night he dreamt of Nothing.

A nothingness so consuming he knew he had never truly understood solitude until that moment. To be the only pinprick of consciousness in a ceaseless gaping void, insignificant and helpless to it. Not even a speck upon the ocean of emptiness.

Darkness had swallowed everything he was, had been, would be in its vastness. He could not cry out, could not even feel the fear, so complete was the destruction of his self within it.

A singular thought ripped him from the Nothing:

You will learn to worship Me.

He woke to the others' screaming. 

\----  
The Worshipers were a testament to Its fickle nature. Each a reminder, a warning, a desire. The most loyal among them decayed yet undying into an unnatural state so that their witch might interpret how best to prepare Sacrifices.

He first passed the pew of the Burnt. That had not lasted long when one nearly caught the forest on fire. The Flayed. The Drowned. The Crippled. The Bled. The Untouched. 

Those It seemed to prefer.

Left unmarred for them to witness as their god rendered soul from body. It did not always look painful, some gifted a gentle passing. 

Others. 

Others were permitted to bask in the glory of a unique horror of watching their body collapse under the force their soul being wrenched from its moorings. Their corporeal form twisting like oil as everything that made them was consumed.

Shuffling steps brought him to the fore of the room. To kneel before his god in communion.

After so many years he had learned to worship.  
\---

Fjord had not woken. Not fully. His body was up and moving but the Darkness was in his eyes and dribbled occasionally from his nostrils.

Lea's hands would not stop shaking. Another he did not know said nothing but was unable to shed their terrified grimace.

He had woken staring into the trees. Chest on fire with bleeding punctures he could not yet identify. Did not realize how deeply he had been marked. The wind whipped around him, beckoning.

The last of their group took one look at the chaos in their camp and declared them cursed before taking off into the night.

He did not get far before It took him.

The trees bellowed and shook, the great storm of It bearing down upon them. Somewhere a branch snapped before they saw. A flash of their nightmares streaking through the world, gathering the man with too many claws. Too much nothingness coalesced into a swooping form that tore flesh from bone and life from meat.

The screams echoed.

\---

Jack knelt, old joints popping. He felt more at ease already, enveloped in the dark, head bent and voice low in familiar prayer.

He was not expecting much. Needed the familiarity of ritual to ease his unsettled nerves. Needed grounding when the stillness of the night still sat unbalanced within.

And then he was Noticed.

The darkness zeroing enough of Its considerable focus to be felt. Snaking, worming tendrils that slid like grains of sand over his mind. 

It took hold of Jack's being. A spotlight of absolute darkness he had been subject to only a few times.

Wordless assessment made him tense, made him kneel lower as if to supplicate the very idea of Its presence. 

He felt like a toy. Passed and handled and inspected though surely he had not moved, aware all the while of how easily It could break him. It rolled down his throat, permeating each panting breath, soaking through his very lungs. Down deep to where he had witnessed souls rise like morning mist from their hosts chests. 

It pulled with an caress, sharp air. Jack clutched at his chest, heart pounding against his ribs.

It would not be the first time one of the followers were killed on a whim.

Honestly he had kind of hoped for more.

Poor Angela would be in for a scare next time she came up.

The sliding...snagged. Caught unexpectedly against him and startled.

Amused.

The pulling in his core ceased. A rumble soothing the frayed edges of his mind. Prickling across his being before disappearing entirely.

Jack collapsed.  
\---

Fjord is next. Wanders off as they make camp at dusk. They find him with arms open, welcoming the terror that descends upon him.

He screams about worship.

Lea and the other, Gabriel, last longer. Admirable in the face of unending Dark. Probably only due to the number of others running through its woods. Why would a god rush through a veritable feast?

Panic and survival make them close. Gabriel is a master huntsman, smart beyond compare. He keeps them watered, rations the mushrooms and berries they find. Notices when the shadows linger to long or too loud.

He grew up in a neighboring village. Jack wishes he gotten to know more. The man is striking not just in his looks, but his composure when facing this formless terror. Under better circumstances he might have been smitten.

Lea, sweet Lea, does not fair as well. The dreams sap his vitality and wit. 

Somewhere between the two, Jack scrapes by.  
\----

Angela woke him.

Her face creased with worry as he blinked owlishly at the ceiling. He did not recall leaving the Sanctuary yet here he was lain just inside the threshold of the main house.

She fretted as he dusted himself off, surprisingly limber for a night spent sprawled on the hard packed floor. 

There were things to do at the homestead. He did not share last night's..... well he wasn't even sure what had transpired. Angela communed with their god regularly, prepared Its sacrifices. If it was important she would surely know anyway.

He stepped out into the morning. The trees swayed, the places between them still dark in the dawn light. His skin prickled with the feeling of being watched as he hurried back to his own quarters.  
\----

Gabriel had died for them. Had seen the trees shake and whip. He heard the whispers in the wind. 

What had they said to him? Jack had wondered what filled his features with such sickly dread. 

No one had slept. The void followed Jack into the waking world, a pressure against his very being. Lea was flagging before their eyes. But Gabriel pushed them onward. His shaking voice belied the steady glare he gave Jack, shoving him bodily. Follow the morning sun. It will confuse you through the night and trick you in the day but the morning sun is always right. He said as he stopped to face the Nothingness.

Jack had felt it then. A loss not for a man he hardly knew but for one he wished he'd known. 

The last he saw Gabriel was bearing his teeth, shoulders squared to the thing that pursued then. A whole being rooted in defiance of his own erasure.

Jack wished that had been the last he knew of Gabriel. It would have been a good end.

But the screams echoed.  
\---

This is not Gabriel.

As much as he recognizes the face of the man standing at the edges of the woods, Jack knows that it is not Gabriel. The blurring shapes of his failing vision sharpen around this being sometimes. At time he glances up to hyper focused vision of a man that was. Other times it appears a dark smudge, the implication of a hand or a shoulder written in its depths. Not Gabriel. Not the man that kept him alive long enough to be found.

Long enough to be claimed and submit to the very thing he had run from. Long enough to learn to worship.

It watches him throughout the day.

As he chops the wood. Cooks a midday meal. Sharpens their knives and checks the few rifles and pistols in the main house.

He does not check his traps that day. They can wait another day. Out intl the woods. Surely.

He can delude himself that long at least. There is nowhere in this wood their god will not go. The homestead is no more safe than out there. He knows this but cannot shirk the need to hide among the houses and gardens.

If the others notice they do not say anything. Ana shoots him a meaningful look in the barn so he supposes he's not imagining the lurking vision. Or maybe she's upset he startled Angela.

He supposes he'll find out one way or another.  
\---

There are so many eyes.

How can he be so unnoticed surrounded by so many eyes?

Why is it worse when one, unblinking and glowing like dying embers, twitches like it might gaze upon him?

Where is he?

Lea screams. Fjord screams. Gerard screams. Angela screams.

He probably screams too but his voice doesn't carry in the Void.

The eyes flutter but do not move.

He supposes it is all a bit pretentious. Much ado  
about Nothing and all.

A terrifying Nothing. But  
still nothing.

It is good  
to go unnoticed with such  
thoughts.

Broken  
Dreams  
Fuck he  
wants to 

wake.

He wakes to red eyes. So so many, peering at him from every corner of the room. This time the scream carries.  
\----

He wakes before dawn. Eyes snapping open even as he remembers therein lies the danger.

But his room is empty. Dark and chilly. His blankets pool on the floor. Sweat damp and shivering Jack puts cold toes into his boots and throws on his clothes.

There should be enough time to get some weapons and a sack. He can leave at sunrise to check the traps. Sunrise.

He's halfway to the main house when he feels a chill that has nothing to do with the weather.

Puppet on a string, he turns to face Not Gabriel. It stands at the arch to their homestead. Its eyes are red like dying embers.

Jack doesn't remember crossing to it. Knows he should prostrate himself before their god. Stands instead and looks at a face scarred and pitted and attractive like a thunderstorm. Defiant and invulnerable even nude in the woods on a brisk winter morning. Did Gabriel always look like that? He can't remember.

It smiles with rows of sharp teeth. Too many teeth for that mouth. He does not think too long on the logistics of it.

He has seen those teeth buried in throats. He has heard that mouth speak haunting whispers of a language they could never hope to understand.

He can't stand to look at those red eyes, looks down to its bare feet. Watches It flex Its toes in the packed earth. It's disarming. Human. 

It cups his face, forcing his eyes up. The touch feels like the change of seasons, leaves dying on the branch. Nails sharp like talons scratch his stubble.

He's seen their patron in so many forms. Towering. Indescribable. Horrible. Terrible. Resplendent. Nothingness given form.

But never mortal. Never human.

Why would it bother with appearing lesser?

Yet Jack cannot bring himself to call this form lesser. Smaller. Familiar. But certainly still a God among men.

"What now?" He asks tilting into the touch of decay and endless starless skies.

If he focuses It has too many eyes, stands too tall, stamps a foot, hoof, paw. So he simply does not focus, relaxing back into blissful ignorant acceptance.

"Now," The voice is rusted iron on his ears, "You will learn to worship."

The hand, smoke, tentacle, claws on his face drops as It turns away from the homestead. It glides into the darkest depths of the ancient trees.

Jack follows.

**Author's Note:**

> Am I a coward for giving Gabriel a human form? Maybe. Does that mean he doesn't have more good old monstrous forms? Not at all. Enjoy you monsterfuckers.


End file.
